August The 15th
by Iapsa
Summary: One-shoot I wrote to celebrate my 16th birthday. In first person, narrating Electronique's "peculiar" 22nd birthday inside a sanatorium. Story about having a really bad birthday, feeling like it doesn't matter to anyone anymore, as if you were dead when you're not. The story is like 1,500 words, but author's note is big. Rated T for creepy madhouse's description, but nothing heavy.


***WARNING: REALLY BIG AUTHOR'S NOTE. IF YOU PREFER, JUMP IT ALL AND GO TO THE STORY ITSELF, YOU'LL UNDERSTAND IT PERFECTLY***

Hey, Kimmunity! I've been missing you!

First of all I must say sorry because I don't uptade "Selina's Diary" (or any other fanfic of mine) since times ago. But some things happened in my crazy life and I kinda had to stop writing fanfics for a while. Actually good things, focusing on the writing stuff. I'm working a lot in my original fiction trilogy (currently writing the first book), so I don't really have time to do many things else. And I also make ballet classes, singing classes and must keep doing great at my f*cking school, so, you know. Time is what I've got less this year. But if everything goes well, soon my first book will be finished and I'll be publishing it. Then I just need to hope it becomes a best-seller and ends up being a Hollywood movie :)

But, anyway:

Yeah, as you probably read in the summary, today (August the 15th) is my birthday! I'm turning 16 years old. The thing is that I'm not exactly happy with it. I remember when I was like 10 or 11, me and all the girls at school were completely obsessed with turning 16 years old. We thought like "when I'm 16 I'm gonna be pretty, I'll go out with my friends, I'll use make-up, I'll go to parties and I'll have a boyfriend!". Guess what? Nothing of this happened to me.

I don't think I'm pretty, I almost don't have friends (I mean, of out the internet), I simply NEVER use make-up, I've never been to a party and I simply don't want to have a boyfriend. Even if I've already accepted that I'm different from the other girls, it's kind of frustrating that we imagined a life and this is not like we imagined. I didn't have great fantasies, to be sincere. But I swear it never crossed my mind when I was 10 or 11 that I'd become a dark-personality person, sufferer, self-hater (sometimes), self-harmer and completely wroth with society. Everbody says like "oh, when we're teenagers we are all like this", but that's not true and I know it. I wonder who people who say so are trying to fool. Just because we're 15 or 16 they think we're stupid? Okay, most of teenagers are but some of them have already seen how life is and are not this fool. I'm in this group. I just don't know if this is good or bad. But, anyway, this story won't talk exactly about this.

My life is kind of heavy right now. I don't like the way I live, I don't see great progress in my things, many arguments with my parents... And, of course, I simply hate my new school. Today a stupid sucking girl made fun of my old self-harm habbits. It almost ended up in a fight, I had to be taken home or I'd freak ou with that bitch. And she got what she wanted, I simply showed the whole school how crazy I am. My mother hates when I say I'm crazy but I don't really care. She says like "you pretend you don't care but nobody likes to be called crazy, not even you!". I disagree, sometimes. I don't like to be really called crazy by someone else, but I also don't see myself as menally healthy person. But don't worry, I see my psychiatrist every bimester, he's taking good care of me, hahaha :)

Well, but even being fighting to finish my book and publish it (this year, the word that best describes me I guess is "fighter"), sometimes I still feel really bad. With everything. Even if it's my birthday. To be sincere, I'm not happy that it's my birthday. What difference it makes that I'm turning 16? None. That's what this story will talk about.

I felt like I needed to publish something sad in my birthday (as I uploaded a video in my Youtube account about being a fighter). I decided it should be one-shoot cause I'm without time and all this stuff. And of course I picked Electronique to it. Everyone who knows me knows my relationship with this character, I guess I don't need to explain it anymore. And I also think that it was good to me to take a break in "Selina's Diary", cause the tale kind of changed in my mind during this time. I mean, it got even more heavy, but I like it like that. I'm gonna focus more in the madness thing, put some conspiracy in this and also some criticism to society. I don't want to seem big-headed, but I think it's gonna get AWESOME. But I also changed one thing that this story will already show you.

In the beggining of July I watched a random video in Youtube, a scene of a movie that passed in a madhouse. I got REALLY scared (I'm scared of everything...), but it simply gave me a great idea to "Selina's Diary", I guess you already know what I'm talking about. The story goes since the 60's till the middle 80's, I'm sure everybody knows (even if just by hearing about) how madhouses, sanatoriums, etc. worked at this time. My psychiatrist also confirmed it to me, these places were creepy. But, since I watched that insane scene, I got completely obsessed with old madhouses. I still am, actually.

And, okay, just look at Electronique for five seconds, it's almost written in her face like "I've already been inside a madhouse", at least to me. I don't know why, but, I always see this in her. So, with a little help of my new obsession, I created a whole dramatic idea of putting Selina Heptskriavique inside a creepy madhouse in "Selina's Diary". Things are going to be heavy there, but this is another story. Now about this one:

I wasn't thinking of writing anything of Electronique in the madhouse before "Selina's Diary", but I was there sad and quiet and this idea came to my mind. I said lines ago that I'm not happy with my birthday anymore. That's true, and I think it's because I'm living a difficult time if talking about finding myself. Not the "commun teenager identity problem", it's more than this. I know it is. I now see my life will be full of pain and sacrifice, and this is not exactly exciting when it's really happening to you, I mean, when it's not a story or a movie. I'm feeling kind of... Dead, to be sincere. As if my birthday was no longer mine, cause I'll have to turn into another person to take all that's coming from now on. And when I first realised that this was my feeling, I remembered Selina turning into Electronique at the first second. And this story beggined inside my mind, then. I mean, I'm feeling like I'm having a bad birthday, and what can be worse than passing your birthday inside a creepy sanatorium, with everyone outside thinking you're crazy and fearing you? Nothing, to me at least. This not to mention what people lived inside these places.

Okay, so now that I finished "updating" all this _little_ information about myself, here is the story. It's psychological, mixes times, but I think it's possible to understand. Hope you like it.

I love you and miss you guys everyday :)

* * *

**August The 15****th**

**- A Birthday In The Sanatorium - **

I open my eyes suddenly. There is a terrified scream echoing here. Must be someone who just came out of the ECT room. Or worse: someone who's going there now.

There is a window near my bed. I see no light on the other side of the opaque glass, it is dark outside there. Inside here, lighting leans more toward the darkness. An orange lamp flashes right on top of me. That is strange.

Again the cry. It is approaching. It probably comes from a corridor near here. The light stopped blinking, remained low. I don't remember how or when I slept. I know it is dark out there, just don't know if it is after sunset or before sunrise.

I look around. Not a really big place, with a few beds and a door at each ending wall. But some lights flash and there is no access to another room through the doors. I'm not where I thought I was. But I've already been here. When was it?... I don't remember.

The scream scares me one more time. I think it never stops, it is me who is not listening completely. If there is silence it is already a sign of failure in the hearing. The drug, probably. How did I get in this ward? The drugs... I was spitting the pills everytime the nurse gave me them. So, how can I be medicated now?

The cry echoes again. But this time I hear the door being violently opened. A nurse pushes a stretcher through it. The scream now becomes continuous. On top of the stretcher lays the screaming personality. I look at the woman. She has just been treated with ECT, I can see it in her face: her hair is a mess, her eyes are full of dark circles, tears fall down endlessly... And there is blood on her nose.

Just by seeing the blood, I feel a scary chill. Comes to my mind my first time in ECT. The woman treated by my side bit her tongue so hard that it literally fell down. When she fainted, blood trickled from her mouth like water going out of a tap. I don't like to remember that.

I try to raise in bed to see what the nurse will do to the screaming patient. But I can't. I look at my hands: they are tied to bed just like my feet. Did I freak out by chance?... I hope not, because if I've freaked out and been sedated, the suffering doesn't end here at this room...

The woman on the stretcher stopped to scream. The nurse probably sedated her. Another thing I don't like to see. That was how I ended up in this place. With a needle inserted forcibly in my arm vein.

Beside me, the scene is the same as always. A woman writhing in the bed's moorings, other two girls asleep and some empty beds. I can't manage to think straight. I gotta repeat some things in my head not to forget them: my name is Selina Heptskriavique, I was born in the Soviet Union in 1962, I work with electrical engineering, my only boyfriend used me, let me down and stole the money I would use in my engineering project, I freaked and my family interned me. I am... How old am I?

I turn my eyes forward. A nurse comes toward my bed. I don't like it when it happens. I don't know what is gonna happen to me. I try to move, but I'm tied to bed. The nurse comes closer.

She opens a drawer of a nightstand next to my bed. She's looking at me, she'll give me the medicine. Now remember, this is the clinic... To where they take the ones who freaked out here. I ended up here once not long ago... I try to keep calm. When the drug is in my mouth, I just need to pretend that I swallow it and spit it out when the nurse leaves.

But the nurse doesn't take a pill off the drawer, but an injection. This scares me. I can spit out the medicine, but I can't get rid of the injection. Might it be sedative? No, I've just woken up... The nurse approaches the needle from my vein. She's quiet, showing an emotionless face. I try to pull my arm, but the mooring doesn't allow me to. The nurse then gives me the injection.

The needleful hurts. I groan timidly while the metal needle is still inside me. I'm afraid. If it was a sedative, I wouldn't be seeing a thing now. But I'm still awake. The nurse then takes the needle from my arm.

"This is not a sedative?" I ask. My voice is hoarse and fearful.

"We need you awake, although it's almost bedtime." the nurse answers me. When I move my head, I realize she's untying me.

"What day is today?..." I ask again. Again, my voice barely sounds.

"August the fifteenth." I hear the nurse saying as she walks away and leaves the room. I close my eyes and open them in the next second, finally moving my limbs. I don't know how long I've been here, but there's one thing I haven't forgotten: I was born on August the fifteenth. So this means today is... My birthday...

I get up slowly from the bed. It is hard to walk. The drug the nurse injected in me should be already working. When applied this way, they have fast action... She said that today is August the fifteenth. But I can't remember which year is this... 1984, I think, but I'm not sure. If so, today I'm turning… Twenty-two years old.

Finally I can take some steps away from the bed. Even so, my body is still heavy. I can't think straight of the fact that it is my birthday. Actually, I can't think of anything. That is the intention... To the outside world, I no longer manage to think... That is why I'm here.

The woman who writhed in bed before now began to scream. My movements seem to go in slow motion. The nurse said I must stay awake... Was she being ironic or really meant something?

I try to think of my birthday to relieve my angst. But it only gets worse. I try the hardest I can to get near the room's door. There is the wall, to which I can lean against. Will anyone out there remember my birthday? It is also my sister's birthday... She will remember me.

I get face to face with the wall. It is not a wall, it's a mirror... Was it here before?... I don't know... The only thing I know is that I don't like mirrors. I try to get away, but I can't. I'm too heavy to walk.

I look in the mirror. I shouldn't have done that. I can only see the dirty image of a young blond girl wearing a crumpled white sweater. That is me, I must remember. My face looks horrible. My eyes are red and wet, as if I had been crying. I look sick. And ain't I?...

In the corner of the mirror I see two men in white coming through the other door. Very slowly. They come in my direction, holding a shirt-jacket. I think of running away. But it would be pointless. Even if I ran, where would I go inside here? I'd be found anywhere... I look up, still in the mirror. There's a clock there. It is reversed, but for some reason I can read it. It strikes exactly nine o'clock. This hour has something special... It was the exact time when I... When I was born... And it is my birthday... Does anyone remember?

"Help, I lost my features! I lost my features..." the tied woman screams. I look at myself again. No, no one will remember my birthday. I know this. Men come closer, my heart beats fast. They're coming, they're coming for me.

I turn back to see them approaching. One step for each fast beating of my heart. Holding the shirt-jacket. I look up. I saw the reflection of a watch in the mirror, but there is no watch on the wall... What does it matter to know the time here? This is just an hour like any other... Today is just an ordinary day...

I turn to the mirror. But I see another person. She is identical to me, but has a blue-gray skin. I see her everytime. She's staring at me while men approach me. Every second they're closer. The clock is still there, striking nine o'clock. It is not my birthday, it is Selina Heptskriavique's birthday. And Selina Heptskriavique is... Dead...

The woman's blue irises become red. I feel the men only millimeters away from my arm. My heart races. I'm about to scream.

I close my eyes.

I finish blinking. I stare at my blue eyes in the mirror. I don't like to remember that sanatorium. It always comes to my mind on August the fifteenth. For almost two decades.

I feel a tear running down my cheek, wetting my blue-gray skin. It is nine o'clock in the night of August the fifteenth. It is my birthday.

"Happy birthday, Selina. Wherever you are." I say to my reflection. Inside the sanatorium I turned twenty-two years old. Now I'm turning forty-one. It makes no difference at all. I look into the mirror again. I see the young woman with light skin and blond hair.

The men grab my arms violently. I scream.

* * *

Oh, well. That's it...

No, it's not coincidence that Selina's/Electronique's birthday is in the same day as mine, if you were thinking about it. As I have a special relationship with this character (I call her mirror character, cause in my stories she's me, talking about personality, of course) I decided to pick up the same day and same hour I was born to be her birthday. Like her, was born exactly at 9 o'clock in the night of August the 15th. My mother says it was a Friday. But in 1997, not 1962, of course.

Hope you have enjoyed the story. Be sure that I'm here if you want to talk to me or review my stories, I just won't update till I finish my original book. Cause it's like working to me, someday I'll have to pay for my house, my clothes and everything else. So, if I want to live as a writer, I better start right now. Before life gets even harder to me. Cause, you know, I don't wat to study. Today my mother said that people who don't study if they can do it are mediocre. Well, I guess that's what she's going to think of me forever. I feel sad about it, but, as they (and Selina Heptskriavique also) say, "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger". Wish me good luck :)

Love you all, you are my life!


End file.
